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Tuesday, 22 September 2015

Sword Art Online RE: Hollow Fragment - A Guide To Dating.

OH HAI! I'm here to guide you through a somewhat confusing aspect of the PS4/Vita game sword art online: Hollow fragment. The game was originally a PSP game that allowed you to work through the final 25 levels of Ancrid that the heroes in the anime never get see. The Vita version added the 'hollow area' a large additional made especially for the game. Recently the PS4 version came out that's essentially a prettier version of the vita game, but with a few refinements, and the hilariously bad translation now fixed. My personal opinion of the game is that its the definition of a 7/10 game, and best played by those who have seen the anime, and like their RPG's.

But one aspect of the game that is frankly confusing is the dating system. "Why would I want to play the dating game aspect?" I hear you cry, because hot anime girls is what I reply. Well that and there are trophies to be had! So here I'll detail how exactly to max out a girls affinity and get yourself some trophies. There are 7 total girls you need to seduce, with 6 of them having their own specific trophies for max seduction (Strea is need for the final trophy for seducing all the laaadies). Lets get on with it.

First things first, a common mistake some make is thinking that the musical notes that come flying out of the girls head when you praise them during battle help increase your affinity. This isn't so. Praising one of the girls in battle only helps guide the way they fight and how effective they are in battle. The second mistake is when you've maxed out the bar during a conversation with one of the girls, and after a line appear saying something like "Lv2 you can now hold hands" means that your affinity has gone up to level 2....it hasn't.So lets begin, first up press the option button, go to friends and then highlight whichever girl you're seducing. The bar that says affinity is the bar you want to max out to level 5.

Affinity is what you need

So how do you max this bar out? Well you can give weapons, but the main way is to have a nice conversation. So you want to press O when facing them and pick chat right? Nope. You need the girl you're with to be the one to start the conversation. When they talk to you and the text box is yellow, THAT'S when you press O, as seen in the following picture.

Mmm yellow...ish

Once you've started the chat the girl you're with will say stuff to you and then when three dots start to appear in Kirito's conversation box and you should press either R1 or X...but which one? Well frankly this is a complete mystery, I've never seen anyone be able to determine what the difference is. There is however a way around this, and that's to stick to certain areas. You see the girls will only start conversations in certain places around Arc Sophia, and you're best off sticking to two places, the fountain and in Kirito's room. These two places require you to only ever press R1 99% of the time. If the girls aren't starting conversations in either area then head to either the back alley in the shopping district or the small bridge near the teleport area.

So when you have a successful conversation that maxes out the top bar the affection level should increase, and when it reaches level 3 you'll be able to bridal carry the girl you're with. You can keep starting convo's up to level 5, but once you've reaches this point, you need to get more daring.

The next step is to head to the stairs in Agil's shop, just before you'd head into Kirito's room...here's a pic to help out.

"Sooo....you wanna, you know..."

The next bit is fiddly as you want to press O when facing the girl you're with and then choose 'pick up', but you don't want any other girls to see you (yes really) as this'll cause the girl you're with to get flustered, and its back to square one (although your affinity will be the same). Usually there's two people who wander in at any given time, but top tip...if you choose one of those girls to be the person you try and seduce, then there should only be one girl for a while. In truth this who'll waiting for the other girls to look away thing can be pretty fussy. They'll be times you're certain no one is looking at you, but the bridal carry will fail, and others when you take a gamble thinking things will fail...but it'll be fine. But once you've picked the girl up successfully, it's time to go up stairs.

Let's hope Asuna doesn't see

Good news, you're nearly done. Now just walk over to the bed, the girl will automatically be put down and you'll end up lying next to each other. You'll have to go through one more conversation, but good news, it'll be a 99% R1 conversation. Once this is done you'll get a scene where the Girl you're with chats to you (which will also unlock a picture in the gallery) and you're done....with this go around as you'll have to do this quite a few times to max out your affinity.

....that's quite alright

The whole on the bed section does speed things up, but every successfully conversation will help you on your way. Once you get to level 5 affinity, PING the trophy should pop. Hope this helps as this aspect of the game is quite confusing and I've personally not managed to find a decent guide anywhere, only bits of info, BAI